Calling Out Misogyny

By Caryl Tozer and Devika Brendon

Many women, however qualified they may be for high office, choose to stay away from the spotlight. Not because they lack ability, but because they would rather focus on their families, their work, and their inner circles than subject themselves to a male-dominated world that remains predictably and persistently misogynistic.

Sri Lanka is over 50 percent female, yet in 2025 women occupy less than five percent of senior professional, corporate, and political positions. Nowhere is misogyny more naked than in politics. This has been laid bare by the recent barrage of attacks on the country’s female prime minister, following the failure of the Department of Education to properly vet and edit a children’s textbook before it went to print.

That failure is the real scandal. Public money was wasted. Oversight collapsed. Accountability is required. The nation should be demanding answers: Who vetted the text? Who approved it? Who failed the system —and how will this be prevented from happening again?

Instead, internet trolls, abetted by opportunistic opposition figures, turned an administrative failure into a personal attack on a woman. Her body, her marital status, her choice not to have children—all became fair game. Humiliation mattered more than governance. Misogyny replaced inquiry.

This is not how male leaders who presided over systemic failures were treated. No gossip campaigns followed their lapses. No moral inquests into their personal lives. Yet many of those same men now posture as guardians of “culture” and “morality.” One must ask: whose culture, and whose morality?

What the public deserves is a transparent inquiry, a published report, identification of responsibility—possibly even sabotage—and firm safeguards to ensure such failures never recur. What we are getting instead is a relentless digital mob, some hiding behind anonymity, others seeking political advantage through degradation.

This ugliness has backfired. Across political lines, women and men alike are rejecting this crude spectacle. They do not want to see any woman —regardless of political affiliation—subjected to such vulgar, personal attacks. Independent women, particularly those who defy patriarchal expectations, have always triggered the worst instincts of misogynists, including women who have internalised patriarchy and police others for refusing to conform.

The under-representation of women in public office means women’s needs and perspectives are routinely excluded from policymaking. Undermining those who do reach the top weakens not just women, but the nation itself.

Patriotism, culture, and religion have become convenient shields for those who failed the country when it mattered most. What patriotism tolerates public spaces unsafe for women? What culture excuses humiliation? What religion lacks empathy and restraint?

Everyone has mothers, sisters, daughters. Yet in public discourse, basic respect evaporates. This frenzy has not earned admiration—it has provoked disgust. Normalising what is plainly wrong is unacceptable in any just society.

This debacle demands investigation, accountability, and reform—not the public shaming of a woman. Misogyny is not political critique; it is moral bankruptcy. The attempt to discredit women through personal attack signals the absence of real argument.

It is time to stop. Judge leaders on governance. End the personalisation of politics. Publish the official report. Recover public funds. Fix the system.

Women deserve equal space in society—and the country will be richer forit.

— Caryl Tozer & Devika Brendon